Does TSR3 Have Nazi Connections?

Evidence has been compiled by an anonymous website which suggests that TSR3's Star Frontiers: New Genesis (Star Frontiers being one of the trademarks under legal 'dispute' with WotC right now) is written by an author with extreme Nazi sympathies.

TSR - The Full & Glorious History of NuTSR

Because the Saga of TSR3 has been ongoing for a while, with many landmarks, I thought I'd do a quick timeline for those who haven't had the time (or, frankly, inclination) to keep up with the whole palaver. As multiple entities refer to themselves as TSR, I will use the nomenclature (1), (2)...

www.enworld.org

I'm not going to directly post the hateful images and tweets here because the content is extreme. It's one of the most focused outpourings of hate that I've personally seen.

But there is a website [CONTENT WARNING -- I need to post the link as evidence but I honestly do not recommend that you click on it] where somebody has anonymously and comprehensively compiled screenshots which indicate that a Twitter feed called 'DaveFilmsUS' (that they allege belongs to New Genesis author Dave Johnson) is filled with hate speech and Nazi imagery. These tweets include racist, homophobic, and transphobic content, along with Nazi and white supremacy memes. There are images of swastikas, and messages about the 'replacement' of white people. The tweets cover a long period of time, going back to at least 2017. They are extreme.

Star Frontiers: New Genesis is a book whose existence many doubt. It shows up as 'sold out' on TSR3's webstore on Dungeon Hobby Shop. Earlier this year, TSR3 posted manipulated images of piles of books (below) made to look like they were Star Frontiers stock. To the best of my knowledge, nobody has seen this book. The game was announced in June 2021.

Meanwhile, Star Frontiers owner Wizards of the Coast continues to sell the game on DriveThruRPG. TSR3 attempted legal action against WotC last year with the goal of claiming ownership of some of WotC's IP; WotC responded with a countersuit which is still ongoing.

Johnson, who runs Dave Johnson Games, also publishes an ezine called Alarms & Journeys, a name presumably 'inspired' by the the well-known zine Alarums and Excursions by the award-winning game designer Lee Gold. Alarums and Excursions has been running since 1975, and is still published to this day.

TSR3 is run by Justin LaNasa (a tattooist, weapon designer, and briefly a politician who refers to himself as Sir Justin LaNasa), who sent (real) TSR alumnus Tim Kask profane messages in January of this year. TSR3 is the third company to bear the name, and is in no way connected to the TSR which published Dungeons & Dragons from the 1970s to the 1990s.

WotC's countersuit against TSR3, which names the company and Justin LaNasa personally, currently remains ongoing.

​

 

[DLIMedia]

Well this thread is going as could be expected...

 

[Professor Murder]

People who feel we can just talk it out with Nazis, that feel the need to defend free speech even when it is vile, to be blunt, such people can do so because they will not be the people up against the wall when the time comes, not at first at least. To also be frank, I have enough privilege to know I would not be one of them either. So why do I not feel this generous? Because quite simply, we have already had this discussion. You don't need to hear people out forever. When genocide is a part of someone's desires, I don't need to hash out why. I just have to try to stop them. Is violence the answer? That's not for me to say. I am not going to be one of the first up against the wall. I will say it would be arrogant of me to demand that people under threat by White Supremacists fight against it as I dictate.

 

[Steampunkette]

Political compromise is great! I love finding the middle ground!

When the middle ground is "Fine, only half of every minority group has to die." or "Instead of killing you all, we'll just constantly commit violence against you based on things you can't change about yourself." there is no compromise.

A Nazi can stop being a Nazi. They can take off the jackboots and put away their ugly ideas and be a part of society. The people they hate cannot be made to change the things they hate.

There can be no middle ground.

There can be no compromise.

There can be no debate.

And TSR works with at least one out and out Nazi. I doubt they'll refute him, or cast aside his 'work'.

When you've got 11 reasonable people and 1 Nazi sitting at a table having a reasonable discussion you have 12 Nazis at a table.

 

[billd91]

Meanwhile, you punch a Nazi and they learn that Nazism isn't accepted within arm's reach of you. Everyone punches the Nazis and they learn there's nowhere that is safe to be a Nazi. That they have to hide it. That it's something society considers to be unacceptable.

Then they have a choice. Stop being a Nazi (or at least openly so), or keep getting punched in the teeth.

Dick Spencer stopped showing up in public for a reason. His political aspirations collapsed for a reason. His connections dried up. His wife left him. All for a Reason.

And that reason was a right hand to the side of the head followed by a strong elbow.

That, I think, is giving far too much power to a single punch. I think a very strong factor in getting him turtling up is probably the lawsuit brought to bear on him as well as the legal trouble of his followers. I couldn't even say that his wife filing for divorce and accusing him of abuse was a downstream impact of him being punched in public.

Getting into fights is what Nazis do. It's what brought them to power in the 1930s. It's what keeps the hard core radicalized. Before they brought the case about marching rights in Skokie back in 1977, the NSPA mostly just got beat up and it never stopped them. And when they finally did march, after changing location from Skokie to Chicago, they were utterly dwarfed by the counter protest (by something like 100 to 1). That is what seems to work best. Turn out to countermarch/counterprotest. Bullies don't seem to handle being outnumbered very well. Plus, it undermines their momentum - being the ones to turn out in large number emboldens them.

Edit: It also takes their implicit threat of mob violence from them and turns it into a losing proposition. You don't even have to deploy the violence in the end.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I feel there is rather unfair binary being presented here. It's not a choice between appeasement and physical violence.

I fully believe that hate speech should be prosecuted, I think bigots should be deplatformed and generally not welcomed in the society.

I'm still a tad sceptical about the merits of violent vigilante justice thought... Sure, I certainly grant that there are rare situations where violence is a valid choice, albeit my bar is pretty damn high there.

There was recently this news story about a taxi driver who told bigots to get out of his car and was very clear about why. This is the attitude everyone should have. But had this guy started to punch the prospective customers, the reporting might have had a rather different tone...

 

[Professor Murder]

I think we should also accept the stark reality that if a persecuted minority member goes out to harm a White Nationalist, they are at best going to risk arrest if not being killed by law enforcement, while a White Nationalist can walk out of a supermarket after executing some ten people and police will do all they can to take them in alive.

 

[Blue Orange]

From what little I can tell, Spencer seems to have been stopped by the legal actions against him after the Unite the Right rally went violent. You don't see much from him after that. The punch deflated him a little, but he obviously survived it. So...was punching Spencer really all that effective? Not sure. In the larger sense of 'is punching Nazis a good idea' (not moral, no ethical problem with it on my end)...antifa does seem to have at least provided a countervailing force to the more violent right-wing demonstrations so I guess yes, it does work.

The (actual) Nazis killed a bunch of my (distant) relatives too, so I've no love for LaNasa and the like (who seems to be the real deal), and I want to see these guys fail.

So...what's the actual best way to fight the far-right? Not sure, honestly. Every country and time is unique--there's no guarantee that the strategies that succeeded elsewhere will here, and anyway whatever was tried in Weimar failed. A lot of it has to do with overall material conditions (makes me sound like a leftist)--extreme viewpoints are less attractive when times are good.

I think unionization would help--it unites working-class people across racial lines--and a stronger welfare state (worked here in the USA in the 1930s).

I do think a lot of this 'all cishet white men are bad' stuff in the media hurts, TBH. There are a lot of lower- and middle-class men in that demographic who aren't particularly privileged, and it definitely has a radicalizing effect from what I've seen. That and in an era of demographic change, crowing about how you're going to replace people (Michelle Goldberg in the NYT comes to mind) and talking about having one billion Americans (thanks Matt Yglesias!) is a bad idea. (Forget race, tripling your population sounds awful.) You honor those who came before and welcome new arrivals--we're all part of the polity. IMHO, of course. You usually wind up having to coopt the center-right at some point--not enough of the country leans left. After all, Winston Churchill kept Hitler out of the UK.

EDIT: Winston Churchill and several million Tommies kept Hitler out of the UK.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I think we should also accept the stark reality that if a persecuted minority member goes out to harm a White Nationalist, they are at best going to risk arrest if not being killed by law enforcement, while a White Nationalist can walk out of a supermarket after executing some ten people and police will do all they can to take them in alive.

Go after a white nationalist?

A guy in my city got iced for carrying Subway sandwiches into his house.

 

[FoolishFrost]

I feel there is rather unfair binary being presented here. It's not a choice between appeasement and physical violence.

I believe the problem is not this.

I didn't see much discussing appeasement, as much as refusing to engage in vocal discussion with a person aligning with a group that thinks genocide is a historically proven way to protect your interests.

Perhaps, the problem here is, they're NAZIS. Just being a part of such a group means you are aligned with the use of violence against those you deem "Lesser". At this point, the table is kinda being set for preemptive strikes...

 

[HammerMan]

I think we should also accept the stark reality that if a persecuted minority member goes out to harm a White Nationalist, they are at best going to risk arrest if not being killed by law enforcement, while a White Nationalist can walk out of a supermarket after executing some ten people and police will do all they can to take them in alive.

This

The legal force of the nation I live in is broken (I don’t know if it is in other countries)